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5:24:00 PM EDT
Feeling Sad
Painful lessons in life
After crying on and off all day yesterday, I seem to have come down with some kind of virus. Shelby woke crying several times during the night. Mandy came in around five AM crying and holding her stomach. Since she is the most stoic of people, I always believe her when she says she feels very bad. (Tabby is a drama queen). I threw up repeatedly yesterday--I thought from nerves--but now it seems we are sick. David has yet to get out of bed, and Shelby needs to be held non-stop. Tabitha is moaning and holding her head and belly. My head is splitting.
This is probably a sign that we need to hole up at home for a little while. When our minds get stressed, our bodies follow.
What I was so upset about yesterday had nothing to do with my sister---at least not directly. I just miss having her as part of my life.
It did have something to do with Aikido, and that was the connection to my sister. Anything that has to do with Aikido is connected in my mind to the loss of my sister in my life.
Julie married my BIL when she got pregnant. I started training in his Aikido dojo when he gave me a free two month membership for Christmas. I did train for eighteen months with Bruce. Eventually he wanted to control my life to the extent of telling me that I could not longer train in the dojo if I did not stop breastfeeding Tabitha, who was four at the time, and quit homeschooling Mandy.
He played a lot of mind games.
Now it seems laughable that I let my BIL have so much influence over me, but martial arts tend to foster a cult-like mind set, and I found myself very vulnerable. However, when he and his best friend tried to interfere with my children and threatened to call Children's Protective Services, that's when things came to an explosion.
Fortunately, my pediatrician, Social Services, Mandy's neurologist, my dentist and my OBGYN stood behind me 100%. There is nothing wrong with either breast feeding or homeschooling. The investigation was never even started, since I was proactive and contacted these professionals BEFORE they called.
The fact that I had been to the ER a few times from a head injury and wrist injury while training with him also made it plain that Aikido at that particular dojo was very physically destructive in my life.
My husband refers to the four years I spent training in Aikido as the worst part of our marriage. Considering the infertility, the financial hardships of pharmacy school, the miscarriages, my crazy mother---this is quite a statement.
When I left my BIL dojo, my friends left with me. I had brought a lot of students to them in the months that I trained there, mostly children in the karate program. My BIL and his two business partners felt that my speaking about my experience was a smear campaign. My sister wrote me a scathing letter, and basically that was the end of our relationship, even through I have approached her over the ensuing years. She did not support me at all.
She made her choice, and it hurt.
Two years ago she told me that my BIL had been abusing her and her two sons, and she left him, only to return to him. Previously she had really exaggerated some things about me to my step mother, to the extent that my father stopped talking to me for no apparent reason. I was pregnant and on bed rest with Shelby & my father in law was dying from cancer. We had recently reconciled after twenty years apart. My children adored my father, and were very crushed by his abrupt abandonment. They lost both grandfathers at once. Now my father is gradually coming back into our lives. I send him pictures via email. My sister wrote me a letter when Shelby was two weeks old, telling me why she had felt the need to interfere with my reconciliation with my father. It had been to protect Bruce--she was pointing out how twisted I was... A year later she was telling a court the same thing I had said years earlier, and she called me trying to find people to support her abuse claims.
Then she returned to him.
Now my mother has stopped talking to me, coincidentally after moving very close to my sister. I suppose I should count my blessings, since my mother is mentally ill. My sister has rapid cycling manic-depression.
I am very sensitive, and things tend to bother me a great deal. I seek harmony in my life, and I am a people pleaser much of the time. When friends hurt me, as happened yesterday, sometimes I really over react. I cried a lot yesterday, but today I am better, particularly as I received a follow up email that clarified some things. I do not hold grudges, and now I can see the other side of the picture. I felt as though I had been slapped in the face and rejected. Now I see it from a slightly different perspective.
Yesterday finalized my decision. I am not going to ever return to martial arts. I am too vulnerable to the dominance of upper ranked people and my need for approval. Aikido is not physically healthy for me (both shoulders,one wrist, and several head injuries) and brings up PTSD issues. I did meet some wonderful people , and I miss the intimacy of those relationships--but not the day-to-day drama, the constant jockeying for approval and currying of favor in the lower ranks.
I got all my old dogi out and I am bagging them up. The dojo sends them to a needy dojo in Nicaraugua. I saved two for Mandy. She still has one at the dojo. She trains at seminars and finds the dojo to be a wonderful place. I would not spoil it for her for the whole world. She does not have my peculiar issues, and Aikido of Cincinnati is a wonderful haven for her. We can't afford for her to train monthly right now, but she loves attending seminars.
I just needed a space to heal from the wounds yesterday opened. In the end I will be better off for it. When one door closes another always opens.
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YOU NO KAS, U YOURSELF HAVE THE ANSWERS. I DO NO HOW HARD IT IS TO GET THE STING OUT OF OUR PYSCHES WHEN THESE PEOPLE SHOW UP TO MAKE YOU FEEL BAD. THEY DO THIS BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT WHAT YOU ARE. AND THEY WISH THEY WERE. YOU HAVE DONE WELL IN BECOMING THE PERSON YOU ARE TODAY. DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILYS AND THE RELATIONSHIPS THEY FOSTER, ARE NOT ALWAYS GOOD, NOT ALWAYS BAD. UNFORTUNATELY, THE BAD SEEM TO STING THE HARDEST. BUT THEY ARE NOT WORTHY OF YOUR FEELING THIS WAY- THEY DO THIS BECAUSE THEY DO NOT WANT TO CHANGE THEIR WAYS ,ADMIT THEY HAVE TREATED YOU AND YOUR FAMILY POORLY, AND GET THE HELP THEY NEED TO MOVE ON FROM THESE BAD THINGS IN THEIR LIVES.
HANG IN THERE DEAR LADY, U R ALRIGHT.
WALLY AND HERDOG TOTO
HESTIA HOMESCHOOL FAN CLUB MEMBERS -
Kas,
I hope you and yours begin feeling better very soon!
I'm so sorry that you have these problems with your
sister and mom. Family problems are the worst.
Love ya,
Connie -
Sounds a little like food poisoning?
You do make me miss aikido, but you are right about the cult-feelings that can go with it. You did the right thing by leaving.
xoxo -
again, I need to stress that while my BIL was the Sensei from Hell, my next Sensei was very sweet.
6/10/05 11:32 AM
becky